Derek Achong

For a third day, Ap­peal Court judge Wen­dell Kan­ga­loo yes­ter­day re­mained ward­ed at the High De­pen­den­cy Unit at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Cen­tre with head in­juries he suf­fered in a car ac­ci­dent on Sun­day morn­ing. De­spite spec­u­la­tion that his rel­a­tives would trans­fer Kan­ga­loo to the Ry­der Trau­ma Cen­tre at the Jack­son Memo­r­i­al Hos­pi­tal in Mi­a­mi, Flori­da, the T&T Guardian un­der­stands he will be kept in Trinidad un­til his con­di­tion has been sta­bilised.

Kan­ga­loo, the most se­nior Ap­peal Court judge af­ter Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, is said to be suf­fer­ing from brain swelling caused by the head in­juries. Kan­ga­loo's con­di­tion was con­firmed yes­ter­day by court pro­to­col and in­for­ma­tion man­ag­er Jones P Madeira, who said he had not im­proved since Mon­day. Madeira said he was un­able to com­ment on Kan­ga­loo's pro­posed trans­fer, as that de­ci­sion would be made by his rel­a­tives.

At around 5.30 am on Sun­day, Kan­ga­loo was trav­el­ling east along the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way when a white Hon­da Civic col­lid­ed with his Toy­ota Pra­do, just af­ter Sa­van­nah Dri­ve, Trinci­ty. The oc­cu­pants of the Civic were Ryan Ramtha­hal, 25, of In­dus­try Lane, Bel­mont; Jevon Spencer, 22, an em­ploy­ee of the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion, of Willis Street, Bel­mont; Je­re­my Soy­er, 24, of St James, and 16-year-old Megan Richards, of Bagatelle, Diego Mar­tin.

They were re­turn­ing home from a club in Ari­ma. Po­lice from the Arou­ca sta­tion re­vis­it­ed the crash site on Mon­day, to take mea­sure­ments to aid in their in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Kan­ga­loo, a horse own­er, was on his way to the Ari­ma Race Club in San­ta Rosa to wit­ness ear­ly-morn­ing gal­lops.

Trav­el­ling with the judge were two po­lice­men-PCs Mar­tin Cae­sar and Ter­rence For­tune-who had been as­signed as Kan­ga­loo's se­cu­ri­ty de­tail dur­ing his stint as act­ing Chief Jus­tice. They suf­fered mi­nor in­juries and were dis­charged from hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day morn­ing. Kan­ga­loo, 56, of West­moor­ings, was act­ing as Chief Jus­tice while Archie was on a trip to the US.